Hopkin Instrumentarium: Squiggly-Amejewar

Squiggly-Amejewar is a custom wooden instrument with four strings and a buzzing bridge. This buzz effect works best with very long strings, and the strings on Squiggly are about seven feet long. They’re played with a flat-sided slide which can add to the buzzing effect by changing how the flat side contacts the strings, making for a complex, varied and evolving sound.

The Indian sitar, tamboura, and the Kenyan obokano are three famous examples of the intentionally buzzing bridge. The Indian designs are subtle and refined in their effect, while obokano brings out a more, exciting, edgy, rhythmic sound. Squiggly-Amejewar owes a debt to all of these, but with its own distinct flavor. It can tend toward the raunchy, but with a sustained and interestingly variegated and multifaceted tone. In this collection, the tones of the scale were recorded in two ways: straight – that is, with no vibrato or other added color, just the fascinatingly evolving spectrum of buzzing overtones, and modulated, with the additional colorizing effects created through subtle manipulation of the slide as the note sustains. If you’re looking for a truly new and unique timbre, take a listen to Squiggly!

We’ve faithfully sampled every interesting sound we could get out of this zither, with three stereo mic positions: Close mics, Pickups, and Contact mics. Plucks, Glisses, and FX are available in all four layers to easily mix and match. With up to 8x round robin and 6 velocity layers per note, you’ll be swimming in lush timbres in no time. We’ve also included a wide selection of custom FX presets and plenty of our signature sound-designed ambient content, crafted from the raw acoustic source to give you complete creative freedom.